Cities blacked out for up to a year, $2 TRILLION of damage - with a 1 in 8 chance of solar 'megastorm' by 2014, experts explore the worst that could happen

* If earth is hit by the same force as the worst recorded solar storm in history, 1859's Carrington Event, it would be devastating

* Magnetic force could disrupt global communications and take out power sources, with huge financial consequences

* The sun is entering a two-year period of increased activity, with a peak due before 2014

By Martin Robinson and Rob Waugh

There is a one in eight chance of a solar 'megastorm' before 2014, according to a Californian scientist - and other space weather experts agree that Earth is facing a burst of violent activity that will peak within two years.

It's unknown what effects this could have on our planet - but scientists have analysed the worst recorded solar event in history, 1859's Carrington Event, and worked out what effects a similar event would have now.

In our connected, satellite-reliant electronic age, the effects would be devastating, they say, as it would disrupt global communications and take out power sources, and could cause up to $2 trillion of damage.

They fear the sun could now be entering a two year 'hurricane season' of solar storms, and the star flared violently on Valentine's Day this year.

'We live in a cyber cocoon enveloping the Earth. Imagine what the consequences might be,' Daniel Baker, of the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics told National Geographic when asked about a potential 'megastorm'.

'Every time you purchase a gallon of gas with your credit card, that's a satellite transaction.

'Imagine large cities without power for a week, a month, or a year. The losses could be $1 to $2 trillion, and the effects could be felt for years.'

The sun has a storm cycle of around 12 years, known as a solar maximum, and as this period draws to a close it generally peaks with a series of intense storms.

The sun's last solar maximum was in 2000 so it should happen in the next year or two.

It could be these storms rival the infamous Carrington Event of more than 150 years ago, when telegraph stations caught fire and their networks suffered massive black-outs.

'The sun has an activity cycle, much like hurricane season. It's been hibernating for four or five years, not doing much of anything,' said Tom Bogdan, director of the Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.

'Now the sun is waking up. The individual events could be very powerful.'

During the Carrington Event the northern lights were seen as far south as the Caribbean, while in America you could read a newspaper just from the light of the aurora.

Highly charged: Sun storms can have beautiful results, such as this aurora over Norway, but a gigantic flare could wreak havoc with our electrical systems

Pete Riley, a senior scientist at Predictive Science in San Diego, California, says there 12 per cent chance of being struck by a solar megaflare.

'Even if it's off by a factor of two, that's a much larger number than I thought,' he told Gizmodo after publishing his estimate in Space Weather on February 23.

Low-intensity solar flares are quite common and can be readily seen in the form of auroras, light displays caused by the collision of charged particles with the Earth's atmosphere.

But the cost of a Carrington Event-type storm striking the planet could range anywhere from $1 trillion and $2 trillion in the first year alone, according to a 2008 report from the National Research Council.

'A longer-term outage would likely include, for example, disruption of the transportation, communication, banking, and finance systems, and government services,' the NRC report said, it was reported on Gizmodo.

'It could also cause the breakdown of the distribution of water owing to pump failure; and the loss of perishable foods and medications because of lack of refrigeration.'

Japan invents speech-jamming gun that silences people mid-sentence

TOKYO – Japanese researchers have invented a speech-jamming gadget that painlessly forces people into silence.

Kazutaka Kurihara of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, and Koji Tsukada of Ochanomizu University, developed a portable "SpeechJammer" gun that can silence people more than 30 meters away.

The device works by recording its target's speech then firing their words back at them with a 0.2-second delay, which affects the brain's cognitive processes and causes speakers to stutter before silencing them completely.

Describing the device in a research paper published Feb. 28 at arXiv.org, Kurihara and Tsukada wrote, "In general, human speech is jammed by giving back to the speakers their own utterances at a delay of a few hundred milliseconds. This effect can disturb people without any physical discomfort, and disappears immediately by stopping speaking."

They found that the device works better on people who were reading aloud than engaged in "spontaneous speech" and it cannot stop people making meaningless sounds, such as "ahhh," that are uttered over a long time period.

Kurihara and Tsukada suggested the speech-jamming gun could be used to hush noisy speakers in public libraries or to silence people in group discussions who interrupt other people's speeches.

"There are still many cases in which the negative aspects of speech become a barrier to the peaceful resolution of conflicts," the authors said.

Gone in less than 60 seconds! Engineers use LEDs and a camera to create an 'invisible' Mercedes (but they might need to work on the wheels)

New trend: Everyone from Harry Potter to Frodo Baggins has already got an invisibility cloak

By Hannah Roberts

Everyone from Harry Potter to Frodo Baggins has already got an invisibility cloak.

But scientists have now figured out how to make an entire car disappear.

Using optical camouflage technology boffins at Mercedes Benz created the illusion that their new zero emissions F-Cell car is not even there at all.

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Taking the principal that to see through something you need to see what's behind it, they covered the driver's side of the car in mats of LEDs, and mounted a digital SLR camera on the opposite side of the vehicle.

The camera shoots video on the passenger side of the car and the video is displayed in real time on the driver side of the automobile.

This ingenious approach, originally pioneered by scientists at the University of Tokyo, works on the same principles of the blue screen used by TV weather forecasters and Hollywood filmmakers.

The idea also mimics the iPad 2 Halloween costume that seems to displays a gaping hole in the human body.

The next conundrum-what to do with an invisible car ? Take it on a week long tour of Germany, obviously.

In Mercedes' promotional video, stupefied Muggles stare and fall about in shock as the team put the car through its paces along the highways of Hamburg and the bridges of Bavaria.

Meanwhile online. while some pessimistic YouTube users were wary, anticipating that invisible cars would no doubt lead to brutal crashes, others fantasised about bring able to park anywhere at all, without getting a ticket.

Hi tech: Scientists have now figured out how to make an entire car invisible

Mind blowing: Using optical camouflage technology boffins at Mercedes Benz created an illusion

See though: Scientists covered the driver's side of the car in mats of LEDs, and mounted a digital SLR camera on the opposite side of the vehicle

How it works: The camera shoots video on the passenger side of the car and the video is displayed in real time on the driver side. It can also be lit up with a pattern or message

Showing off: The next connundrum was what to do with an invisible car ? Take it on a week long tour of Germany obviously

Ingenious: The approach originally pioneered by scientists at the University of Tokyo works on the same principles of the blue screen used by TV weather forecasters and Hollywood filmmakers

Preparation: Mercedes-Benz engineers kit out the car with LEDs

While Mercedes-Benz claims to be ready to mass produce hydrogen-powered vehicles, the cost of production is still prohibitive.

Engineers have created a low-cost catalyst for hydrogen production, but the actual cost of the vehicles is out of reach for most European and American customers,digital trends.com reported.

A Mercedes-Benz F-CELL car can travel up to 250 miles using an electric engine equivalent to 134 horsepower.

Commercial hydrogen-powered cars may not arrive for real until 2015, analysts anticipate, the major problem in the US being the cost of establishing proper equipment at gas stations.

Watch the video

UFO: U.S. marines report alien-like activity

by Roger Marsh

An American witness inside U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan, reports there were many people watching a series of "seven equally spaced lights" in the sky that appeared and reappeared during one evening, according to recent testimony from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database.

"We were all in our office on Camp Leatherneck when we were told to come outside and see these really cool lights in the sky," the witness stated.

There were many witnesses to the event.

"I know that all of my friends on Facebook that were with us saw the same thing. They were up there long enough that people were leaving."

The lights were hovering in place, but they disappeared and reappeared again.

"They were up there for a long time without moving. They went away for a while and then came back. They didn't move or blink or make any noise. They looked like they were really high up but there was nothing to base that on. Pretty cool event."

The witness provided two images with the MUFON report, which was filed on February 26, 2012. The events occurred on February 7, 2010. Image 1 and Image 2. The above quotes were edited for clarity.

Camp Leatherneck a 1,600 acre United States Marine Corps base located in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade initially developed Camp Leatherneck in 2008 in preparation of its forces deploying to Afghanistan. The forward element of the II Marine Expeditionary Force as Regional Command Southwest is currently based there. It is also home to 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing (Forward), 1st Marine Division (Command Element) or Task Force Leatherneck, 1st Marine Logistics Group and, I Marine Expeditionary Force Headquarters Group.

‘We Will Strive to Ensure a New World Order’: Vladimir Putin Outlines Plans for the EU

by  Becket Adams

Here’s what many will not find the “feel good” story of the day:

In an article published just before Russia’s upcoming election, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin calls on eurozone leaders to consider the idea of creating what he calls a “Union of Europe.”

“That’s right,” writes Business Insider’s Adam Taylor, “a Union of Europe, not a European Union — a free trade zone (and perhaps more) stretching from ‘Lisbon to Vladivostok.’”

As Taylor notes, there’s a certain element of “schadenfreude” in Putin’s article, especially when he writes:

Russia is actively participating in the international effort to support the ailing European economies, and is consistently working with its partners to formulate collective decisions under the auspices of the IMF. Russia is not opposed in principle to direct financial assistance in some cases.

The Russian PM, “with a tone of a distant if kindly uncle,” as the New York Times put it, outlines his plans for both Russia and the EU [emphasis added]:

Russia is part of the greater world whether we are talking about the economy, the spread of information or the development of culture. We do not wish to and cannot isolate ourselves…

However, we intend to be consistent in proceeding from our own interests and goals rather than decisions dictated by someone else. Russia is only respected and has its interests considered when the country is strong and stands firmly on its own feet. Russia has generally enjoyed the privilege of conducting an independent foreign policy…I am convinced that global security can only be achieved through cooperation with Russia rather than by attempts to push it into the background, weaken its geopolitical position or compromise its defenses.
…
I do not doubt that we will continue on our constructive course to enhance global security, renounce confrontation, and counter challenges like the proliferation of nuclear weapons, regional conflict and crises…We will do everything we can to see that Russia enjoys the latest achievements in scientific and technical progress and to assist our entrepreneurs in occupying their rightful place in the world market.

We will strive to ensure a new world order, one that meets current geopolitical realities, and one that develops smoothly and without unnecessary upheaval.

Wait, what? We’re now striving for a “new world order”? That’s… well… that’s disconcerting.
His article continues:

…Russia proposes moving toward the creation of a common economic and human space from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean – a community referred by Russian experts to as “the Union of Europe,” which will strengthen Russia’s potential and position in its economic pivot toward the “new Asia.”
…
The crisis that has struck the eurozone cannot but affect Russia’s interests, especially if one considers that the EU is our major foreign economic and trade partner. Likewise, it is clear that the prospects of the entire global economic structure depend heavily on the state of affairs in Europe…We have a stake in ensuring a strong EU…It is in our interests to realize the enormous potential of the Russia-EU partnership.
…
I propose again that we work toward creating a harmonious community of economies from Lisbon to Vladivostok, which will, in the future, evolve into a free trade zone and even more advanced forms of economic integration.

He goes on to explain that “free trade zones” can be realized if, among other things, eurozone leaders consider easing visa rules and agree to more cooperation in certain industries (specifically gas).

Read Putin’s full address here.